BOKAMOSO
Alan Winde’s bold safety plan for the Western Cape
1 October 2019
Our country’s crime levels have been so high for so long that we have become a nation almost resigned to living in fear. Even the most shocking and violent crimes hardly make the news. But last week, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde drew a line in the sand when he launched his safety plan for the Western Cape. For Winde, a safer province is non-negotiable and he’s willing to be held personally accountable if he doesn’t succeed. One of his commitments is to halve the province’s murder rate in 10 years. This task is at once both seemingly impossible and completely essential.
The province will be allocating a billion rand a year to the dual approach of fighting crime and preventing violence. On the crime-fighting front, this will fund an additional 3000 law enforcement officers and 150 investigators. The law enforcement officers will be deployed where and when crime happens while the investigators will be tasked with preparing dockets for prosecution, to ensure legitimate arrests lead to convictions. Both will focus strategically on areas of concentrated crime and use technology to achieve maximum “bang for buck”.
The murder rate in the Western Cape is now 60 for every 100 000 people. Yet murder and other violent crime is concentrated in a few specific neighborhoods. Murders in the suburb of Bonteheuwel, for example, dropped from 44 last year to just 1 this year as a result of such concentrated effort. But alone, such targeted initiatives cannot ensure sustained results, as criminals can move to other areas.